Andrea Sinclair

Andrea won the inaugural National Emerging Art Prize in 2021. She has also been a finalist in the Darling Portrait Prize 2020, Ravenswood Art Prize 2020, The John Leslie Art Prize 2018 (Best Gippsland Landscape winner), Clyde & Co Graduate Art Prize 2016 (winner), the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize 2014 and the Nillumbik Prize 2013. After returning to university in 2014, Andrea finished both her BFA and MFA at RMIT (Melbourne) in 2018 and has focused on refining her work and building a strong art practice ever since. Andrea’s work is held in the Gippsland Art Gallery’s permanent collection and of course Morgan’s Financial Art Collection in Sydney with the inaugural NEAP winning piece ‘Flossie’.

Most recently, Andrea was highlighted in Vogue Living Australia’sFemale Artists To Watch at This Year’s Affordable Art Fair, Sydney.

“Snow evokes powerful memories.

The crunch of it under foot.

Catching the flakes on your tongue.

Skiing on a bright blue day.

The way it made everything quiet and perfect after the first snowfall.

Winter play – the sleds, snowballs, snow angels and snowmen.

How good it felt to go inside and warm up when it all got too much.

This show coincides with our Winter Solstice and has given me the opportunity to reflect on my life lived in a snow laden country before I settled here. The solstice events twice a year remind me of the dramatic turn that my life has taken.

For me it brings memories of Canada, of watching the flakes shimmer in the streetlights as I stood in the dark, waiting for my school bus. Listening to the radio hoping to hear school was cancelled. The fresh foot of snow on the ground when we left our wedding reception. The definitive change of the landscape.

Many people in this country come from places where snow in winter was a fact of life, and although many cannot fathom -30c and a blizzard, those of us who do know what the winter can hold keep a special place in our hearts for it”. – Andrea Sinclair